Hyperscale clouds have been developed by the Internet giants to support the creation and delivery of software-based services at blistering speeds, and at the lowest possible cost. The original ETSI NFV vision was to adopt hyperscale cloud architecture and practices. This vision has become somewhat obscured along the way, due to misunderstandings about the hyperscale cloud itself and how to migrate to it. This webinar will cover:

What a hyperscale cloud is and how OTT players have gained massive success through this architecture

How hyperscale cloud is being applied to the network

What steps operators need to take to ensure they achieve the benefis they expect from NFV

If you could only find a way to consume the video content of your choice and have it delivered to your selected device when you wanted it. It’s 2015 – shouldn’t we be there by now? Cloud-DVR is the next big thing in video – with the ability to energize the monetization of video content and alter the very nature of the value chain – from content creators to distributors. This webinar will focus on the rapidly emerging, lean forward video consumption behaviors we are all adopting, and the advanced innovations and technologies that are propelling the market to deploy “the ultimate viewing solution for the multiscreen world.” It will explain how content creators, broadcasters, aggregators, and distributors can all benefit by deploying this innovative technology, and who may be the biggest winners of all. The webinar will also discuss how advanced advertising innovations such as Dynamic Ad Insertion can vastly improve the monetization of advertisements and value to the end user.

With the final G.fast standard now approved by the ITU for next generation fixed broadband access networks, network operators can now undertake tests and trials of commercial systems based on the new specifications, which will enable downstream speeds over copper connections far faster than the 100 Mbit/s that vectored VDSL2 can achieve. This webinar looks at the key considerations network operators need to consider as they consider fiber-to-the-distribution point (FTTdp) for their future fixed broadband rollout strategies, including technology testing, network planning, power consumption, and real-world service potential.

We've heard a great deal during the past two years about how SDN and NFV could benefit communications service providers and other network operators by making them more agile, efficient and competitive.

As a result there have been many network virtualization developments from the technology supplier community and a great many proof-of-concept projects involving communications service providers (CSPs) and their vendor partners.

To date, though, there have been few commercial deployments of SDN and NFV capabilities by CSPs and few (if any) independent tests of virtualization systems that the industry can trust.

That's why Light Reading funded a team from independent test lab European Advanced Networking Test Center AG (EANTC) to go to Cisco's facilities in Silicon Valley and put the networking giant's service provider virtualization and cloud solutions to the test.

What is compelling about EANTC's approach is that it effectively took on the role of a CSP that offers VPN services to business/enterprise customers, acting like a network operations team and seeking the answers that service providers really need if they're to figure out exactly how these new capabilities can help them improve their businesses and offer better services to their customers. EANTC was able to do this as its team includes experienced engineers who have run communications networks: They know what to do and how to do it.

In this webinar, representatives from EANTC will talk about their time in Cisco's facilities, what they verified and how and why they tested Cisco's solutions, as well as their analysis of how virtualization capabilities can impact CSP strategies. Cisco will also talk about how it has developed its service provider virtualization portfolio and how that is addressing the needs of network operators.

Attacks against mobile networks are increasing at an alarming rate, and mobile operators are trying to mitigate those attacks in the context of the proliferation of devices, the scaling up of the all-IP LTE network, cloud-bases services and evolving security threats. During the webinar, we will cover:

Impact of the massive increase in devices, data traffic and signalling traffic with LTE.

With the explosion in digital services, CSPs are becoming more focused on customer loyalty and how they can provide a differentiated customer experience while at the same time drive greater business performance. Many CSPs are turning to metrics like Net Promoter Scores (NPS) to measure how loyal their customers are. Increasingly, they are making significant investments to understand the key factors that influence customer loyalty particularly in the area of network and service quality.

In this exclusive webinar hosted by Light Reading and IBM, gain first-hand insight into the growing influence network and service quality has on customer loyalty metrics like NPS and learn how CSPs can exploit this growing trend to their advantage. During the webinar, we will share a number of exciting findings on this topic from in-depth recent research we have conducted with a number of leadings CSPs around the world.

Business services are growing rapidly and hold a great potential of revenue growth for operators around the world.
Technologies like NFV and SDN open the door for innovative services and new exciting business models for their enterprise customers
But as the number of customers, services and order complexity grow, the need to streamline and automate the business services delivery becomes critical.

Amdocs and Heavy Reading will reveal the results from a new survey on service delivery for telecom’s Business customers.
Join us to learn the survey results and the different strategies for effective service delivery for business customers’ orders.

NFV promises to revolutionize telecom network architecture and the landscape, from core centers to wireless communication itself, by enabling the centralization and virtualization of the mobile base station. Not only does this new concept enable scalability and agility, it also promises to slash the cost per sector compared to what it is today.

For this to become a reality two things must happen; a fast, power efficient hardware platform must be available, and an abstracted and flexible software framework must be deployed. .

In this webinar ’you will hear from key perspectives:

DuanRan(段然), Green Communication Research Center, China Mobile Research Institute And Pal Gronsund, Research Scientist at Telenor Research

Two of the leading carriers will share their perspective on how carriers are keen to validate the NFV compatible virtual Base Station solution architecture and the benefits it provides with regard to deployment flexibility, agility, scalability, energy and spectrum efficiency and the reduction on total TCO from both CAPEX and OPEX perspective.

Eran Bello, ASOCS, Vice President of Product Marketing

ASOCS describes a software based Base Station system that utilizes a hardware acceleration platform to deliver complete virtual base station solution including all layers and functions.

The Data Center Interconnect (DCI) market is experiencing explosive global growth. Content, service and colocation/hosting providers are seeking to directly connect content to end users at the edge of global networks. Providers need this direct connection in order to deliver faster, anytime, anywhere access to the unprecedented numbers of businesses and consumers straining these networks, driven by the game-changing dynamics of cloud computing, mobility and video. Adopted early by the largest Web/content providers, service providers are now building metro overlays for DCI. And colocation and hosting providers are deploying DCIs as their businesses and data center real estate grows. While early DCI deployments centered around national and international routes, the DCI market is now undergoing massive and accelerating deployments in metro and regional areas.

In this Super Service Provider Webinar, we take an in-depth look at the challenges and opportunities facing content, service and colocation providers of different types as they build their business and their networks around data centers and the cloud – with a particular focus on the metro and regional network. Providers will need to evolve to a new type of network architecture – optimized for the cloud - that will help control costs, guarantee quality and deliver new revenue-generating services to connect users and the cloud. To address this need, providers must move towards a cloud–optimized network, leveraging integrated IP, optical and management solutions together with software-defined networking (SDN). This will allow them to deploy networks that meet the dynamic and rapid growth in customer demand for video and other high-bandwidth cloud services with instantaneous access over the metro network.

Web Real-time Communication (WebRTC) is one of the most disruptive communication and collaboration technologies to hit the market in years. It’s a wild, untamed market that is expected to become more complex as the device base continues to move from PCs to mobile phones and tablets… and beyond.

Although WebRTC is generating high levels of interest and excitement, IT departments need to be aware of important security and interworking related considerations. For instance, service providers and enterprises have embraced Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) in a big way, and WebRTC must integrate into these established environments. In order for WebRTC to succeed it must seamlessly interwork – or be interoperable – with existing SIP-based networks. Furthermore, enterprises and service providers need to be judicious about network security when WebRTC browsers start communicating with their networks because of the potential threat of a malicious web application taking over a user’s browser and directing communication.

Taming the Wild West of WebRTC may seem daunting, but the answer is as simple as S-B-C. Session Border Controllers (SBCs) deployed at the edge of the network help secure networks from attack by recognizing and neutralizing threats, while ensuring reliable communication by bridging the technology gap between old and new. SBCs are a critical component of a successful WebRTC game plan for any enterprise or service provider.

Join the discussion to learn how WebRTC can open your business to new frontiers, securely and reliably.

With the need to constantly increase bandwidth, many telecommunications operators are moving from 10G to 100G on DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing) networks. The shift towards 100G and B100G brings new opportunities—but also challenges during deployment and service activation. This webinar will discuss what sets 100G apart, with a focus on test and measurement for the optical layer. Topics such as fiber characterization, handling new impairments in coherent systems, challenges in mixed 10G/100G systems, and what’s next will also be discussed.

Both TOSCA and YANG are needed to deploy VNFs and the network services they support in an agile model. TOSCA is required for its application-centric deployment model which takes care of the desired, long-lived state of an application throughout its lifecycle while YANG contributes its end-user service centric view and ability to carry out short-lived reconfigurations of virtual network functions, dynamically, at service runtime. This webinar will provide an overview of both modelling languages as well as a discussion on how they may fit into the OSS and the ETSI NFV architecture.

Carriers continually reevaluate their transport networks in order to lower their costs, improve service velocity and provide higher bandwidth services. New and changing service demands have some carriers signaling a need for more flexible network architecture. To address these needs, equipment providers are responding with next-generation systems that can reduce opex and capex costs, provide rapid bandwidth/capacity provisioning and offer topology flexibility and simplified operations.

The reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer (ROADM) has been a key element in long-haul and metro optical networks, as well as one of the driving forces in their development. First deployed in the early 2000s, the ROADM has proven itself by the thousands. Yet existing technologies have not satisfied operators seeking even greater flexibility and reduced cost. The debate has begun on next-generation ROADM functionality, deployment technologies and applications.

In this 60-minute webinar, HeavyReading analyst Gabriel Brown first brings you inside the stadium and mall opportunity, taking a look at what’s considered the “Holy grail” for small cell, IOT, Location Based Services, Commerce and Retail. It’s the intersection of consumers, business and big brands.

Caroline Chan, who leads Intel’s small cell market development efforts, provides insight to market adoption of Edge Cloud services, IOT enabling modules for retail and venues, in support of NFV small cell services.

Art King, director of enterprise applications and services with SpiderCloud Wireless, formerly head of IT mobility services for a global consumer brand, dives into use venue and mail use cases and actual services examples with a large business partner where they explore location, local caching of content, and consumer/business cloud services with an NFV platform inside a scalable small cell system deployed on an Ethernet LAN.

Gabriel Brown moderates the session and makes sure you have enough time to ask your questions.

Attack methods have become more diversified and service providers are now battling more advanced attack vectors that threaten the availability and performance of their services. Commonly, service providers are coming up against DDoS attacks which have evolved into a sophisticated, aggressive and damaging attack vector. To maintain service availability and keep their downstream customers up and running, service providers must be able to detect, analyze and defeat DDoS threats in real-time before they develop into costly service availability outages. Join this session to better understand the state of DDoS in the service provider space, and how providers can protect themselves and their customers from DDoS attacks.

Service chaining is an emerging set of technologies and processes that abstract service logic from the underlying network and enable operators to configure services dynamically. By routing traffic flows according to a “service graph”, service chaining addresses the requirement for both optimization of the network, through better utilization of resources; and monetization, through the provision of services that are tailored to the customer context.

This webinar will discuss emerging approaches to services chaining across both physical and virtual environments, with a view to making operator networks more adaptable to change and more able to keep pace with innovation in the application layer. Among the approaches to be discussed are IETF Service Function Chaining, the NFV Forwarding Graph, and SDN-based traffic steering.

NFV promises more rapid innovation, faster path to revenue, and reduced costs. However, as CSPs evaluate the required transformations in their network, a key challenge will be how to manage NFV, as NFV will have a significant impact on CSPs’ Operations Support Systems (OSSs).

Virtualization won’t occur at the same pace in the whole network and some parts of the network will stay non-virtualized, hybrid services will be the most common occurrence and CSPs’ OSSs would need to be able to bridge legacy and new resources.
This webinar presents the HP vision to help service providers succeed their NFV transformation by breaking the OSS silos and migrate to a dynamic production environment, based on the concept of service operations factory (SOF). This is where the integration between fulfilment and assurance will create a virtuous circle to make service management more agile, effective, and complete – and enable realizing the promises of NFV, including reduced time to market, driving service agility and innovation, and significant cost savings.

Network Performance Enforcement (NPE) on a per-flow basis didn’t exist a year ago. Yet this radical new approach is transforming not only the entire end-user network experience -- guaranteeing that no subscriber session will ever crash again regardless of network load – but also resets fundamental service provider business model and architectural assumptions that have been in place for decades.

This webinar will show how NPE uniquely integrates the simultaneous real-time, discrete monitoring and control of millions of concurrent IP flows, successfully guiding and adjusting bandwidth and security policy on each individual flow 20 times per second as it passes through NPE-controlled links.

The value for service providers includes a large uptick in bandwidth utilization, the monetization of previously withheld “reserve” bandwidth, and the ability to offer new granular levels of guaranteed services based on multiple tiers of enforced “fair usage” on a single network. Fully compatible with legacy, virtual, SDN and NFV networks today, NPE has been architected with the scale required for Cloud, Mobile and IoT network deployments.

NFV promises great opex savings; however, migration to virtualized infrastructure will make network operations dramatically more complex for service providers. This barrier needs to be overcome in order to rollout NFV on a broad scale and to deliver quality-assured data services with the speed demanded by end-users.

This webinar will describe:

The operations complexities introduced by NFV architectures

The lifecycle service orchestration framework that is required to effectively fulfill and assure services across virtualized and physical hybrid networks

Real-world strategies to make evolution to NFV possible and actually improve operations

The publicity given to devastating cyber-attacks on companies like Sony Pictures leads some mobile operators to believe that the uniqueness of the mobile network, service and device environment means they are nowhere near as vulnerable to DDoS and Advanced Persistent Threats (APT). Leveraging Heavy Reading survey data, and pointing to real examples which have not attracted the same level of publicity, this webinar will demonstrate just how vulnerable the network stability and confidential information of mobile operators becomes to DDoS attacks, especially as LTE scales. It will also outline how the mobile operator’s operations team and threat detection and mitigation capabilities need to evolve from wireline to wireless to protect its network assets and the user experience of its customers.

Heavy Reading Chief Analyst Graham Finnie shares his insights on the key market and technology shifts that are driving continued relevance for policy control as a strategic capability for service providers – from monetizing network service quality and over the top (OTT) partnerships to leveraging virtualization and policy analytics for greater service agility.

Ragu Masilamany, Head of Product Management from Amdocs, will examine the critical architecture and engineering requirements for the policy management infrastructure of the future to monetize service quality in the network. The five key “diagnostics” for PCRF explored in this session will be:

HD apps: Service availability and extreme reliability

NFV: Industry standards architecture for service agility and elastic scalability

Policy analytics: Validating the impact of policies on subscriber experience

OTT service quality: Exposing APIs to enable quality of service (QoS) in the network

Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) are transforming networking agility in ways that were unthinkable just a decade ago. This offers service providers the opportunity to increase revenues by making network services available to more customers more flexibly than in the past. With NFV, service providers can close the agility gap that exists between enterprises that need fast and flexible access to network services on demand, without long and complex contractual arrangements, and service providers’ traditionally capex-heavy and slow delivery of such services. This webinar will look at the technology ingredients that underpin agility transformation and investigate a new model of network service delivery that can accelerate it.

As operators get real about SDN, both in proofs of concept and in limited commercial introductions, they are now grappling with the hard questions that come with actual implementation. This webinar, based on research done directly with operators, will look at how they are defining SDN in the wide area network, the perceived benefits and priorities for SDN in the transport network, the coming integration of packet (Ethernet and IP) and optical layers and the optical layers, the changing role of OpenFlow and other industry standards/protocols, and the need for additional collaboration and standardization to enable SDN to reach wide-scale implementation.

In this 60-minute webinar, HeavyReading analyst Gabriel Brown takes a look inside smart building service opportunities for Enterprise IT and Mobile Operators, exploring existing services that can be unlocked with small cell systems and new services that can be offered.

Christine Boles, who leads Intel’s Internet of Things (IOT) market development efforts, provides insight to IOT use cases and affordable building automation systems, to showing how building managers can reduce energy consumption and increase operational efficiency in order to boost the bottom line with IOT integration with small cell systems. BAS systems based on standard platforms with connected and secure features, bring visibility and control previously only possible with high-end systems.

Art King, director of enterprise applications and services with SpiderCloud Wireless, formerly head of IT mobility services for a global consumer brand, dives into smart building use cases examples for large buildings and venues.

Gabriel Brown moderates the session and makes sure you have enough time to ask your questions.

Cable operators are facing a significant and growing challenge. While new and enhanced services – including IP-based video – are driving MSO growth, current approaches to scaling the cable access network are inadequate to meet the projected bandwidth needs. Competition is not helping matters either. In many markets, major rivals like AT&T, Verizon, Century Link and Google Fiber have introduced ultra high-speed services with very aggressive price points.

While cable operators must take these challenges seriously, they hold the trump card; their coax networks have enormous bottled-up capacity. In this webinar Light Reading, Comcast, Liberty Global, Gainspeed, and Juniper Networks will explore the business benefits obtained by leveraging SDN and NFV to deploy distributed access networks, like Virtual CCAP. Further it will discuss how MSOs can utilize these SDN- and NFV-based distributed access architectures to enable broader network automation and orchestration, reduce network cost, deliver new services to end users, and increase the capacity and scale of their access networks.

But this time around there’s a difference. In the past operators have been able to deploy new technologies in series, that is one after another. With the current new technologies, due to the interdependency on each other, they are linked. Therefore instead of deploying the new technologies in series, the deployment of one new technology forces the deployment of the others. This webinar will describe the three new technologies, the interdependencies between them, highlight why this is bad from the operator’s perspective and explore ways to overcome the resultant resource crunch - by the deployment of a Unified Visibility Fabric to de-risk the new technology rollouts.

In this 60-minute webinar, Heavy Reading analyst Gabriel Brown first brings you beyond basic coverage and capacity and looks at market readiness, challenges and opportunities for enterprise IT and mobile operators as the industry starts to embrace small cell services.

Caroline Chan, who leads Intel’s small cell market development efforts, provides an insight to market adoption of Edge Cloud services, enabling chips and modules, and industry standards developments in support of NFV small cell services for enterprise and venue applications.

Art King, director of enterprise applications and services with SpiderCloud Wireless and formerly head of IT mobility services for a global consumer brand, delves into use cases and examples for a scalable small cell system as a reliable platform for mobility services inside buildings and venues. With an IT friendly small cell system, IT can leverage mobile operators for cost savings with LAN-based Edge Cloud services, with tie-in to location, local caching of content and integration with smart building services.

Gabriel Brown moderates the session and makes sure you have enough time to ask your questions

Join us for a webinar where we will discuss how taking full advantage of LTE-Advanced features places new requirements on mobile backhaul networks connecting the base stations to the core. This will require carriers to tightly synchronize base stations in terms of frequency, phase and time by deploying new distribution mechanisms including Synchronous Ethernet, IEEE 1588v2 PTP and GPS.

In addition, operators are increasingly looking to use small cells to grow capacity and for coverage fill-in, with architecture choices often involving a Centralized RAN (C-RAN). The Split Baseband and RF processing functions in the C-RAN create a mobile fronthaul network connecting the Remote Radio Units to the Baseband Units via a CPRI or OBSAI interface. We will discuss how the synchronization and timing requirements extend to the fronthaul networks and the testing strategies required for successful deployments.

SONET/SDH transport networks that utilities have been using for years are rapidly becoming obsolete. Modern broadband packet based transport networks are clearly the solution, but they come in two flavors : Carrier Ethernet and MPLS (including MPLS-TP). This webinar introduces these two technologies, asks whether they can address the requirements of power utilities, and compares their suitability in the context of operational networks. Threats to communications security are discussed in depth.

HTML5. Cross-device. Multiplatform. OTT. Distracted viewers. The world of digital TV is undergoing a fundamental transformation, changing the way that viewers engage with content. With the proliferation of new devices and video screens, platform fragmentation -- and the challenge of measuring and monetizing viewing across screens -- is becoming more daunting than ever. We have reached a broadcast technology and business inflection point, making it increasingly important for network operators to invest in future-proof technologies for the next decade of digital TV.

Featuring insight into recent video trends with key data from the Adobe Digital Index' Q214 Video Benchmark report and Light Reading analysts, this webinar will address how to overcome the monetization, digital delivery, and analytics challenges in order to foster the scaling of next generation digital TV.

The evolving dynamics of wireless services require a new approach that reduces MNO capital and operational expenditures. Cloud RAN (CRAN) comes into the scene as a MNO-driven initiative to reduce the cost of wireless services, with protagonists that include major service providers such as AT&T, Orange, China Mobile, SK Telecom, SoftBank and many others. CRAN is based on implementing the concepts of network function virtualization (NFV) to the radio access network (RAN). This decouples the hardware from the radio access protocol software and allows the network operator to leverage the economics of cloud computing and data centers. Hence, CRAN has the hallmarks of a disruptive technology that can change the economics of the wireless network as well as how equipment is designed and networks are deployed.

In this webinar will we discuss CRAN and why it will change everything, what challenges operators need to overcome to implement CRAN, and review technologies that enable the rapid deployment of cost-effective CRAN solutions.

Carrier Ethernet 2.0 was designed to allow carriers to knit together diverse compliant networks to create an end-to-end experience for their customers to unleash the power of Carrier Ethernet. This webinar will look at the extent to which CE 2.0 is being deployed, the new capabilities it is enabling in the market, and the competitive advantages of those leveraging the MEF technical specifications and implementation agreements.

The networking/telecom industries are making a big shift from the “Appliance” era where networking functions were delivered on proprietary hardware to the “Virtual-Function” era where functions will be delivered using a common infrastructure comprising of standardized hardware, virtualization software and SDN. There are several approaches available to operators looking to build this common infrastructure. Operators need to make the right choice to help the realize the full potential of this shift. In this webinar, ConteXtream and Heavy Reading will discuss how the common infrastructure can be architected for achieving maximum benefit.

Whether you are building a high end router or deploying an IoT sensor network, a Device Management Framework including support for new standards such as NETCONF/YANG and Web Technologies such as Representational State Transfer (ReST) are fast becoming standard requirements. Next generation Device Management Frameworks can provide substantial advantages over legacy SNMP and proprietary frameworks. These advantages and use cases will be thoroughly explained throughout the course of this webinar.

With the increasing and explosive growth of interconnected devices, Device Management is no longer a requirement exclusive to Telecom Equipment Manufacturers (TEM’s). Devices from the core of the network all the way down to Customer Premise Equipment (CPE), IoT sensors, and everything in between inclusive of Routers, Switches, and Gateways, etc… must be manageable. Telecom and Network Equipment providers are adopting new standards such as NETCONF and ReST over NETCONF to mitigate the problems that legacy standards do not solve such as scaling, security, transactional support, etc. In this webinar you will learn about:

Integrating new standards and web technologies including NETCONF, NETCONF Light and ReST

Legacy standards such as SNMP, XML-RPC, and how they can co-exist with NETCONF

Both SIP and Diameter are essential for delivering VoLTE services. SIP and Diameter complement each other and work in tandem to provide the complete signaling needs of 4G/LTE networks. It therefore makes sense to combine the two platforms into one. SIP handles call control for establishing voice, video, messaging and IM sessions in 4G/LTE networks. Diameter is used for signaling between policy servers, subscriber databases and charging systems to provide AAA (Authentication, Authorization and Accounting) functions in 4G/LTE networks.

An integrated approach to SIP and Diameter signaling at the LTE network edge is one that offers many advantages over a separate multi-box approach, both in cost savings, and reduction of complexity, providing mobile network operators the ability to increase speed to market for VoLTE and advanced IP based services.

Join us for a discussion of how the integration of SBC and DSC functionality onto a single platform will have a positive impact on VoLTE providers by allowing then to save money, reduce complexity and roll out advanced IP based services faster.

While the timetable for when is still widely debated, it’s clear that TV’s future lies in the cloud, with fully digital workflows and delivery all but guaranteed in the not-so-distant future.

Most broadcasters and operators have taken the first step to acquire digital content rights and some have already launched OTT video services to compete with pure OTT offerings like Netflix.

How to ensure success, more specifically sustainable profitability, with OTT Video remains an unanswered questions for many.

How much value can be extracted from digital content rights? Which content is going to perform best? What is the most effective way to monetize content? How much are people willing to pay or how many ads will they sit through? Which syndication partnerships will generate the highest return? What devices and platforms should be prioritized?

In this session we will explore various methods to answer these difficult questions and the role that data will play in solving the multiple, and complex, dimensions of OTT Video.

The new ERICSSON MOBILITY REPORT unveils a wealth of data-driven insights on the state of the global and regional mobile landscape today and predictions of what it could be tomorrow. Ericsson has performed in-depth data traffic measurements since the early days of mobile broadband from a large base of live networks covering all regions of the world. This report will share data you won't find anywhere else - along with analysis based on our measurements, forecasts and other complementary consumer studies which provide further understandings into current traffic and market trends.
Please join us in this webinar featuring the just released Ericsson Mobility Report with South East Asia & Oceania insights. Ericsson's Warren Chaisatien, Head of Marketing for Australia & New Zealand and Networked Society Evangelist for South East Asia & Oceania, will discuss trends on 4G/LTE, smartphones, data and social media usage, and the region's interest in connected devices, as well as key predictions towards 2020.

The cloud computing wave is enabling the communications industry’s shift towards network and application virtualization, empowering the delivery of new services to their customers more quickly with significantly reducing operating and capital costs. In order to facilitate this shift, CSPs require carrier grade, open standards based NFV solutions that are extremely reliable.

More specifically, CSPs are looking to leverage to OpenStack technology for their future NFV environment while addressing carrier grade needs. HP and Wind River are joining forces to provide CSPs with an open, highly reliable, and comprehensive NFV infrastructure (NVFi) solution. Now, CSPs can accelerate their journey to NFV while leveraging the open source community approach so successful with enterprise IT, without compromising the “always on” experience customers have come to expect.

CDN owners are faced with increasing demands for content coming from a plethora of devices—many of them mobile. This means their traffic volumes are growing rapidly in the face of sustained competition. They need to distribute their networks cost effectively, and are looking for alternatives.

New network function virtualization (NFV) solutions from companies like 6WIND and HP are enabling a virtual CDN solution. It leverages 6WIND’s packet processing capabilities and HP’s telecom-grade server platforms. Combined, they offer the promise of lowering CDN operators’ capex and opex, while also providing support for hosted CDN services and an optimized environment for application developers.

Please join Roz Roseboro, Senior Analyst at Heavy Reading, François-Frédéric Ozog, VP of Business Development, at 6WIND and Lloyd Mayhew, WW Business Development Manager, Telecommunications Industry, HP Servers for a discussion on how new solutions can help CDN operators, telecom operators and application developers achieve their business objectives.

Software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV) are gaining traction in the cable industry as network operators seek game-changing ways to ease ever-growing bandwidth demands, improve service delivery and consistency, cut operational costs, and slash time to market for new services, features and applications. However, many network operators, including cable MSOs are still uncertain about how, where, and when to implement virtualized solutions in their networks. Join Light Reading, Cox Communications, and Juniper Networks as we explore current trends in SDN/NFV adoption, approaches that some pioneering MSOs are trying and some common challenges facing cable MSOs as they implement SDN/NFV solutions. We will look at how NFV and SDN are fueling a fresh approach to cable network performance and offer some practical approaches to leveraging SDN and NFV solutions to enable new and dynamic service creation, more efficient network automation, and more simplified cable architectures.

Following Cablevision's successful deployment of network DVR services throughout the New York metro area, Comcast is now rolling out its new Cloud DVR service across its U.S. footprint. At the same time, an increasing number of cable equipment and software suppliers are introducing Cloud DVR solutions to pave the way for more rollouts. In this webinar, we will take a close look at the growing Cloud DVR phenomenon, explore its revenue potential, examine the challenges that lie ahead for cable operators, and see how these challenges can be overcome.

How Next Generation Session Border Controllers (SBC) can Harness the power of NFV and SDN to Launch New Services and Reduce CostsDate: 10/23/2014
Sponsors: Sonus
More information and registration

NFV and SDN can significantly reduce SBC provisioning procedures by automating certain time-consuming tasks, lowering operating costs significantly by dramatically reducing the complexities of setting up and maintaining hardware based SBCs. Service Providers have the ability to spin-up additional SBCs with little or no setup, reduce the configuration burden, and reduce the probability for configuration errors. A provisioning process that used to take many hours or days can now be completed in a matter of minutes.

This webinar will provide an overview how an SDN controlled service model can significantly reduce network operations by automating time-consuming tasks. In addition to reducing Operational Expenses, real-time interaction between virtualized SBCs and SDN Network Controllers, will empowers service providers to deliver a range of innovative new services, including:

SDN and NFV both promise hardware vendor independence, improved operational efficiency, standardized and open interfaces and the dynamic chaining of network functions to create new services. While potentially bringing disruptive benefits to the networking industry, they also come with their own sets of challenges. Key among these challenges is service orchestration & management in particular when legacy network architectures are to be part of a hybrid service delivery solution.

Siloed, legacy operation support systems (OSSs) are structurally not fit to address this challenging roadblock in the way of ubiquitous adoption of NFV based services.

We believe a new generation of management system is required which should feature the ability to enable rapid new service design and roll out over multivendor hybrid networking infrastructure. Key to this capability is the engineering of a powerful abstraction layer decorrelating the multivendor world of devices (physical and virtual, South) from the world of service design and management (North).

The use of mobile devices is gaining domination over desktop usage. Some analysts predict that by 2017, 50% of employers will make BYOD in the workplace compulsory. Forward thinking Service Providers are exploring how to monetize mobility management beyond traditional MDM. Explore how granular control of apps/info without MDM, adding proactive threat and app protection, and treating app intelligence as a value added service will create network differentiation and strengthen your brand.

In large part due to the ramp of commercial 4G network deployments and anticipated rollout of NFV virtualized network functions, there is now an even greater focus on managing control plane interfaces. As a result, the technical and business drivers for deploying centralized Diameter Signaling Controllers (DSCs) are now stronger than ever.

Join Steve Davis, Ulticom’s Product Manager for an in-depth technical presentation designed to document the tangible and immediate benefits associated with deploying a virtualized DSC. To capture the real-world implications from a network operator perspective, Kim’s presentation will include a number of specific use cases including leveraging virtualization to enhance IPX based Signaling as a Service (SaaS) network capabilities.

Find out how video analytics are the foundation to driving revenue for Multiscreen Video Services with Heavy Reading and IneoQuest.

As consumers have more ways to watch video than ever before, video providers are looking at new business strategies for revenue growth. This webinar will provide insights on how to capitalize on the evolution of content delivery and effectively monetize high value content. We’ll cover:

As network infrastructures evolve and selected elements shift from physical systems to virtual functions a new class of network appliance is required that provides high performance processing, balanced I/O and hardware or software acceleration. Such a platform must combine standard server technology and modular systems that can be configured to support line rate performance with network interfaces up to 100Gbit/s. This webinar will discuss a class of network appliance that offers performance levels previously requiring more complex and costly architectures while integrating seamlessly with standard software frameworks such as Linux, Open vSwitch (OVS) and Intel® Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK).

While small cells currently compliment the roles of the 3G/4G macro-base stations for coverage and capacity, they also have different characteristics. This webinar discusses wireless backhaul capacity, networking, and signal processing challenges for small-cells. It then focuses on the technologies -- millimeter-wave (E and V bands) radio technology in particular, as well as hardware and software design solutions leveraging Xilinx All Programmable SoC platforms. Examples will be given showing how PHY and L2-L3 functions can be implemented in a flexible, low-risk, and cost-efficient manner.

As we face a new era of digital services, an operator’s ability to monetize these services in a manner that is light weight, easy and fast is paramount. Virtualization and cloud-based BSS is a technology means to this end. Join Jim DeMarco, CTO of Redknee, as he showcases how an operator’s virtualization strategy enabled it to support a new business line in just 10 days. Learn about the best practices used and the tangible benefits that other operators are attaining today.

Application-to-person (A2P) SMS has increasingly become a key method for organizations to communicate with their customers. This has been driven by the ubiquity of mobile phones and the universality of SMS. Unfortunately, this has also lead to a massive growth in messages being sent through illegitimate routes that bypass the operators’ billing systems. This is commonly referred to as grey routes carrying grey traffic, and is a tactic commonly used by third-party aggregators to boost their own profitability. The result is lost revenue for mobile operators who often do not have visibility and control of messages on their network.

This webinar with industry experts from Heavy Reading and Cloudmark will take an in-depth look at the need to tackle this problem by:

Capturing operators’ lost revenue by identifying and re-routing rogue traffic.

Eliminating the use of grey routes by providing legitimate channels for inbound traffic that enables operators to bill for it.

Enhancing control and policy strategies to catch mobile attacks that may be entering networks via illegitimate means.

Why the DSC of yesterday won’t meet the needs of your Diameter networks now

In a very short time, the strategic value of Diameter Signaling Controllers (DSCs) has increased dramatically. A DSC is now being seen not only as a platform to support Diameter routing, mediation and security but also as a means to interwork, orchestrate and enhance other control plane signaling protocols such as RADIUS and SS7. And the DSC is emerging to play a key role in Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) environments that will fundamentally change how the control plane is utilized in next-generation virtualized IP networks.

Join Tom Schroer – Director of Service Provider Marketing, and Jim Hodges – Senior Analyst for Heavy Reading, as they discuss how service providers are leveraging the next wave of signaling controller functionality today and cover use cases that highlight the additional functionality DSCs will need to meet emerging control plane signaling orchestration requirements.

You will learn all about:

Techniques to mine the value of control plane messages to enhance and differentiate services

How signaling interworking can reduce service delivery costs and speed up interoperability with other networks

Accelerating service velocity and reducing costs through signaling orchestration

When moving from "just-in-case" (JIC) capacity management in their backhaul networks to "just-in-time" (JIT), mobile operators can significantly reduce capex and opex while still delivering exceptional user experience.

How customers experience your company’s live support has a huge impact on your brand, the perception of the company, and ultimately your bottom line.

Contact centers have successfully implemented optimization for ACD/IVR, workforce optimization, but not yet for live customer interactions. Solving most support problems is a largely manual process involving scripts, static knowledge bases and time-consuming "talk therapy". The result is an inconsistent service that is highly dependent on the expertise of individual agents.

There is a better way! In this webinar, Ari Bannerjee of Heavy Reading and Amy Millard of Support.com will discuss:

Contact Center support trends – and impact of overall technology trends for support

Customer Interaction Optimization – What is it? What are the key measure and strategies?

Network operators have well-documented issues delivering services efficiently because of rising operational costs and inefficient utilization levels in their networks. As such, the desire to simplify and speed service creation and management through SDN and other approaches to automation, virtualization and orchestration has captured their attention.

An SDN solution that includes predictive analytics based on continuous collection and correlation of traffic and topology state from live customer networks is ideally suited to this problem set. In the interest of rapid development, applications should be able to take advantage of web technologies such as Representational State Transfer (ReST) that get visibility into the provider network without requiring a deep understanding of protocols or network structure. Technologies such as NETCONF/YANG and PCEP are ideal for control of the multivendor network.

This LR webinar will cover common service provider use cases for more quickly and consistently optimizing and monetizing infrastucture. We will detail the underlying technologies required for this undertaking and highlight specific functionalities geared towards value added services and business optimization. Finally, we will discuss use real operator workflows to make the business case for network control in today's service provider network.

If you can master large quantities of data you can succeed. The rise of Google, Linkedin, Facebook, etc. has proven that storing and understanding data can lead to big rewards (more than $65 billion last year). Communications service providers (CSPs) are now asking how they can get in on the action. At the same time people are more aware of their right to privacy and the impact of data loss.

In this webinar, we look at some of the technical challenges of storing large quantities of data. We will consider what types of data CSPs have and how storing this data might benefit their business. We will discuss the alternative ways of storing the data for different uses and cover Hadoop, traditional database and alternative technologies. Finally, we will consider cost-effective ways that CSPs could comply with proposed legislation in the US Senate, “The USA FREEDOM Act.”

R&D organizations, vendors, and operators are now starting to define and develop 5G wireless technologies, with a view to commercial deployment from 2020 onwards. This webinar will address performance targets, key technologies, and potential timelines for 5G trials and commercial launch.

Service providers who adopt network functions virtualization (NFV) and software-defined networking (SDN) gain on-demand application/tenant-driven services and network optimization while reducing their costs significantly. Security mechanisms will need to work seamlessly together to handle the new vulnerabilities posed by network virtualization, implemented discretely, in different physical and virtual domains, leaving no vulnerabilities. Ecosystems of security solutions will coalesce around software-defined security controllers (SDSC), and such ecosystems will need to capture security policies from multiple SDN controller and NFV management and orchestration vendors. This session explores concepts for designing and implementing security in a trusted network.

As we move into the commercialization phase of both SDN and NFV, there is generally consensus that the move to a pure software model will enable new levels of service agility that traditional networks have never been able to achieve.

Conceptually this will be possible by leveraging this software model in more dynamic, real-time and innovative ways that transcend physical limitations of integrating software into dedicated platforms that remotely serve the end-user.

However, to fully realize this vision, there are a number of decision points and challenges the industry must address. Accordingly, this webinar will focus on both from a network management and security perspective. Specific topics and questions the webinar will address include:

How will the move to more agile SDN/NFV networks impact carriers and customers?

The need for real-time network insight to manage IP traffic and the role that automation and real-time policy play.

What are the real-time performance monitoring requirements for IP networks?

What are the challenges of supporting SDN/NFV management and security enforcement requirements in 100G networks?

Expanding Programmability From the Control to the Data Plane With Xilinx Software Defined Specification EnvironmentDate: 6/26/2014
Sponsors: Xilinx
More information and registration

The networking industry is moving from the “fixed-function era” where services are built upon proprietary hardware architectures and custom software to the “virtualized-function era” using standard hardware and software-defined networking (SDN). While networking software architectures are evolving rapidly, data-plane hardware often remains bogged down and cannot easily accommodate agile SDN software models. To address this mismatch between SDN software and old-style hardware, Xilinx has introduced the revolutionary “softly” defined network approach, which creates a software-defined data plane with content intelligence so that equipment design teams can precisely tailor network hardware that delivers the flexible network services and applications required. This webinar explores open hardware trends in the global market and how network architects can leverage the Xilinx Software Defined Specification Environment for Networking (SDNet) and its revolutionary softly defined network approach.

Policy control has been widely deployed by network operators to help manage IP traffic and applications, and to support the development of new types of service plans. But how will the role of policy control change as operators deploy software-defined networks? And what benefits can it bring to SDN? In this webinar we will analyze how SDN could be enriched by the information and the decisions available in policy control and also how SDN will influence the evolution of existing policy control solutions.

Applications such as mobile data services and enterprise cloud services, and the increasing speeds of the access networks over which they are delivered, are driving up the demand for both quality and quantity of bandwidth at the network edge. At the same time carriers are looking to consolidate the separate networks that have typically served their various access infrastructures, imposing further capacity and density requirements on installed equipment. Meanwhile, architectural changes inspired by NFV and SDN mean that more carriers are considering deploying mini datacenters in the metro and closer to access networks for the delivery of virtualized applications -- a move which will force the deployment of more transport capacity to guarantee service delivery. These trends are all fueling the need for 10 gigabit-per-second Carrier Ethernet services. 10-GigE is rapidly displacing GigE and legacy TDM as the edge transport network of choice, delivering both aggregation and support for service level agreements closer to the customer. Carriers want rapid service delivery and ease of operations, putting pressure on the next generation of Metro Ethernet gear to deliver more than higher capacity.

Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) marks a profound paradigm shift in networking as we know it to move network functions from dedicated hardware appliances to running on virtualized server platforms. But while mobile operators agree on the need and vision for NFV, many are struggling to understand the practical migration steps to NFV and how to measure success.

This webinar with industry experts from Heavy Reading and Ixia will take an in-depth look at:

The motivations for NFV

When does it make sense to move to NFV and when doesn’t it?

How do I know a migration to a virtualized appliance was successful?

Best practices for measuring performance of a virtualized environment.

Please join us as we discuss Six Common Myths and Truths of Virtualization. All webinar registrants will receive a copy of Ixia’s new eBook, "Demystifying NFV: A Definitive Guide to Measuring Performance in a Virtual World."

Networking OEMs today face ever-changing market needs at an accelerating rate and complexity. Their challenge lies in balancing development costs with the need to adapt quickly to evolving market requirements. Avago & Tieto have joined forces to enable and provide networking OEMs with the technology, support, and services they require to be successful in the marketplace. Leveraging this unique collaboration and domain expertise, networking equipment vendors can quickly deploy emerging applications such as NFV and HetNets using key technologies such as ODP and OpenStack, reducing resource investments and time to market by more then 40%.

With many recent new launches and more to come in 2014, VoLTE is finally moving center stage for mobile network operators. In principle, VoLTE can help operators both to control costs and to meet competition from both conventional and Web-based communications service providers. But there are significant challenges too, both business and technical. In this Webinar, we will:

Look at the LTE deployments and progress with VoLTE, video and rich communications services

Service providers know they need to protect the network, maintain user privacy and stability, and manage billions of sessions without costs spiraling out of control and without affecting LTE enrolment plans. In this webinar, Patrick Donegan, Senior Analyst at Heavy Reading, and Leonid Burakovsky, Senior Director of Strategic Solutions at F5, will outline the new challenges introduced by LTE, specifically new security threats in the service provider network. They will address the importance of implementing a dynamic, multi-layered security approach that makes use of virtualization, service chaining, and Diameter signaling platforms.

In order to meet their subscribers’ insatiable demand for multimedia content and to prepare for the future explosion of the “Internet of Things” M2M applications, Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) have no choice but to continue to invest in their 4G LTE networks. MNOs are also keenly aware that their business models will shift from predominantly voice- and text-based to data-based revenue models. Therefore, to avoid damage to the top and bottom lines of their businesses, it’s imperative that MNOs do everything they can to protect the availability and performance of their 4G LTE, all-IP, data networks. Join Arbor Networks and Heavy Reading as they highlight the latest trends in mobile network threats and discuss ways to minimize their impact on mobile network infrastructure and services using industry best practices and Arbor Networks solutions.

Thanks to the rapid growth of the over-the-top (OTT) video business over the past few years, many traditional video service providers are now interested in entering the market. Intrigued by OTT’s promising revenue prospects, services providers are planning, testing, or developing their own Internet video services for launch. Yet, in all too many cases, they are looking to enter the market without doing their homework, leaving them vulnerable to some common misconceptions about what’s needed to build a successful OTT business.

Please join leading experts from Telstra and Ooyala as they tackle and correct the five most common misconceptions about the OTT video world. In this session, we will explore such leading misconceptions as:

Content rights are easy to negotiate

OTT’s business model is all settled

OTT’s infrastructure and hardware are no different from IPTV’s

The cloud doesn’t have enough security

Audience behavior is the same

Profiting From Service Innovation: How Communications Service Providers Leverage Policy to Turn Insights Into ActionDate: 5/28/2014
Sponsors: Sandvine
More information and registration

Service plan innovation is a top-of-mind objective for communications service providers (CSPs). Catalyzed by increased LTE deployments and competitive forces in the market, service differentiation is more important than ever. Vital to service innovation are the network policy control, PCRF, and enforcement products that enable creative offerings ranging from simple data packages to application-centric plans. In order to successfully provide personalized services, CSPs need purpose-built business intelligence and customer experience management tools that reveal valuable insights about subscriber segments and behaviors . This webinar explores service innovation trends in the global market and how CSPs have leveraged insights to take action, resulting in increased competitive differentiation and improved customer experience.

Interconnect (IPX) and LTE operators are actively evaluating the deployment of Network Function Virtualization (NFV) in their networks. NFV is a fundamental change in the IPX and LTE network architecture that is expected to deliver benefits such as network agility, opex savings, flexibility to choose multiple vendors, and consolidated network management. Networks will migrate to NFV over time, and not as a one-time network-wide switchover. It is important for operators to have a solid game plan that protects their existing investment, minimizes disruption to the existing network, and provides the ability to migrate to NFV at their own pace.

SDN and NFV are viewed as disruptive forces that will bring about wide open networks, allowing operators to usher in a new wave of innovation and multi-vendor interoperability. At the core of any SDN transformation is openness, which has widespread implications for hardware, software, and network management.

This webinar will examine the implications and benefits of openness. You will learn:

The implications of the evolving standards process on SDN and open-source

How SDN enables NFV in an open environment
Why open-source is important

Key initiatives that will pave the way to an open, multi-vendor network

Meeting high-speed residential broadband service level targets and universal service objectives profitably is impractical with FTTH. But pushing DSLAMs very close to customers to make possible necessary service levels with FTTC simply trades one set of challenges for another. Now far more efficient residential broadband networks can be built that fully leverage the installed base of any vendor's DSLAMs and DSL modems.

Learn how broadband amplifiers enable you to:

Get more distance and bandwidth out of VDSL2, with or without vectoring

Enlarge the customer serving area and achieve greater operational efficiencies

Video is going to be the next main source of revenue for operators. Operators have big opportunities and advantages to monetize video services. Globally, Huawei has helped more than 70 operators achieve over 30 million video subscribers. Watch this video for more.

Hyperscale cloud has been developed by the Internet giants to support the creation and delivery of software-based services at blistering speeds, and at the lowest possible cost. The original ETSI NFV vision was to adopt hyperscale cloud architecture and practices. This vision has become somewhat obscured along the way, due to misunderstandings about the hyperscale ...

Designed especially for emergency and dedicated ad hoc local mobile communications coverage, Huawei's eLTE Rapid solution can deliver trunked voice, video and data coverage for multiple users over a 6km range and be set up in just 15 minutes, explains Huawei's Norman Frisch.

Most everything is now connected. And along with 4K and 4G technologies, everyone could be creating and broadcasting video contents. Users are expecting better video experience with any screen, anywhere and anytime. Operators will meet new challenges, but also see some big opportunities.

David Le Goff, director of strategic and product marketing at Qosmos, explains how the company has added application awareness to subscriber information to make service chaining more efficient and reduce costs for networking and infrastructure. In addition, Qosmos technology, which has been delivered as C libraries, is now also available as a virtual machine, ...

LR CEO and Founder Steve Saunders sits down with the head of Qosmos to talk about the changing state of the art in deep packet inspection technology, including its role in SDN and NFV architectures. Also, how the comms market is becoming more like the automotive industry.

Top German soccer club FC Schalke 04 has deployed a new, agile WiFi network from Huawei in its Veltins-Arena stadium and is reaping the benefits in terms of customer satisfaction and business opportunities, explains marketing chief Alexander Jobst.

More people than ever are now watching videos on smartphones. Seventy percent of mobile traffic will be video traffic until 2018. In this video, Huawei's exports give their insights on mobile video in terms of business model, network planning and 4G network construction.

Trunked radio communications have entered the 4G LTE world, and with Huawei's eLTE solution, can now deliver a full range of data and video services as well as push-to-talk voice, explains Huawei's Norman Frisch.

Video is going to be the next main source of revenue for operators. Operators have big opportunities and advantages to monetize video services. Globally, Huawei has helped more than 70 operators achieve over 30 million video subscribers. Watch this video for more.

Hyperscale cloud has been developed by the Internet giants to support the creation and delivery of software-based services at blistering speeds, and at the lowest possible cost. The original ETSI NFV vision was to adopt hyperscale cloud architecture and practices. This vision has become somewhat obscured along the way, due to misunderstandings about the hyperscale ...

Designed especially for emergency and dedicated ad hoc local mobile communications coverage, Huawei's eLTE Rapid solution can deliver trunked voice, video and data coverage for multiple users over a 6km range and be set up in just 15 minutes, explains Huawei's Norman Frisch.

Most everything is now connected. And along with 4K and 4G technologies, everyone could be creating and broadcasting video contents. Users are expecting better video experience with any screen, anywhere and anytime. Operators will meet new challenges, but also see some big opportunities.

David Le Goff, director of strategic and product marketing at Qosmos, explains how the company has added application awareness to subscriber information to make service chaining more efficient and reduce costs for networking and infrastructure. In addition, Qosmos technology, which has been delivered as C libraries, is now also available as a virtual machine, ...

Top German soccer club FC Schalke 04 has deployed a new, agile WiFi network from Huawei in its Veltins-Arena stadium and is reaping the benefits in terms of customer satisfaction and business opportunities, explains marketing chief Alexander Jobst.

More people than ever are now watching videos on smartphones. Seventy percent of mobile traffic will be video traffic until 2018. In this video, Huawei's exports give their insights on mobile video in terms of business model, network planning and 4G network construction.

Trunked radio communications have entered the 4G LTE world, and with Huawei's eLTE solution, can now deliver a full range of data and video services as well as push-to-talk voice, explains Huawei's Norman Frisch.

Chattanooga’s EPB publicly owned utility comms company has become a poster child for how to enable a local economy using next-gen networking technology. Steve Saunders, Founder of Light Reading, sits down with Harold DePriest, president and CEO of EPB, to learn how EPB is bringing big time tech to small town America.